Why Did You Grab Dad's Arm?
Min-ah had a good heart. She was nothing like her mother.
Her mother had lived her entire life being treated like a queen. Which meant a rotten personality was never a problem. She could treat people however she pleased, and it never came back to bite her.
A line.
There is a line that exists so that a human being remains a human being, and not a devil. Cross it, and you become a devil who has abandoned all humanity. Stay on this side of it, and you are still, at least, a person.
A-yeong was a woman who observed only that minimum line.
I didn't know it when we were dating. She and I lived in completely different worlds. She was in the College of Fine Arts. I was in the College of Medicine. So I never saw her true nature. What she showed me was a fabrication — a thoroughly rehearsed performance.
My ex-wife had a weapon. Her looks.
Her arms and legs were proportioned so perfectly that she could pick up extra work as a body double for celebrities — just the limbs, standing in for theirs. And it wasn't as if her face was anything less. You could almost trick yourself into wondering why she hadn't become a celebrity herself.
When someone like that approached me so naturally, of course I was captivated.
She used that beauty to play queen among everyone around her. Hers was the kind of power that rivaled the state itself. There were males who would have staked their lives for a single glance from her. And she wielded that near-sovereign power however she pleased.
People might have wanted to say something. No one could. She never crossed the line into becoming a devil — and as long as she didn't cross it, she was always, by default, in the right.
You know the saying. Pretty girls get a pass. And it actually held true in the real world.
She used everyone around her as extras in the production she was staging. I was one of the ones taken in by her performance.
What she wanted was money. And a doctor for a husband. She never loved me.
That's right. Even then, something in the story felt off. I should have realized it at that moment — how dangerous a person is when they mold themselves perfectly to fit you.
I still remember how her attitude changed the instant my family went under. I was too naive to see it then. She manufactured a conflict on purpose, then used that conflict as her reason to leave. And of course, it was all my fault.
That was the first time I saw her true nature. I should have cut everything off after that.
Still, thanks to it, I was able to pull myself together and throw myself into my studies. It felt like despair at the time, but looking back now, I am genuinely grateful it happened.
Hankuk University — the most prestigious university in the country. And Hanguk University Hospital, the finest university hospital in the country, operated by that same institution.
Even graduating from Hankuk University's College of Medicine doesn't get you into Hanguk University Hospital. Only the students who score at the very top of that already elite pool can go there.
With everything in my life forcibly stripped away, I was able to devote myself entirely to studying, and in the end I began my internship at Hanguk University Hospital.
It's no exaggeration to say that interns and residents live at the hospital — the workload is that brutal. I truly lived there. I saved on rent and meals, and I made sure the chief of thoracic surgery remembered my face. And so, eventually, I became a thoracic surgeon.
It was around then that A-yeong came back to me. I had been a doctor for exactly one month.
I took her back.
She was a vicious bitch who had stomped my pride into the dirt. But she was also a woman who could raise that same pride to the heavens. A-yeong's beauty was a point of enormous pride among my fellow doctors. She knew it, too. She knew she could inflate my ego with her looks.
That was why I took the woman who had discarded me — that terrible woman — as my wife.
Two things struck me as odd at the time. The moment our relationship recovered, she started demanding sex with a frenzy. And she insisted we file the marriage registration first thing.
When I later dug into my ex-wife's past, the results were shocking. After she left me, she had been with no fewer than five men. And she had dumped every last one of them. None of them had been to her liking.
Which made sense. Before my family went under, I had been well-off, and I had bought her everything she wanted — mostly luxury goods. Not many men could afford that.
And in the middle of all that, as if she'd gone into heat, she had been sneaking into the clubs in Gangnam behind her boyfriends' backs. That was when she heard the news about me. That I had become a specialist at Hanguk University Hospital.
The child conceived around that time was probably Min-ah.
I hired a private investigation agency to try to find Min-ah's real father, but it was a failure. At her worst, my ex-wife had slept with as many as three men in a single day. But they were all one-night stands. Unless I tested the DNA of every last one of them, finding Min-ah's biological father was impossible.
Min-ah was going to be my child to raise anyway, so I gave up on finding out who her father was.
A-yeong was a villainess. The number one contributor to the ruin of my life. But she gave me Min-ah.
She was the daughter of a villainess. And yet she was nothing like that woman at all.
They say a child's personality takes after the parents. If that theory held, Min-ah would have been packed off to my ex-wife a long time ago. But Min-ah never was. She was devoted, and overflowing with a sense of responsibility. She was brilliant, but never arrogant, and she always took responsibility.
Above all, she loved me... her dad.
When I had lost everything and fallen into despair, if it hadn't been for Min-ah's encouragement, I would have sunk into the swamp and died there.
"Stay strong, Dad."
You have no idea how much strength those few words from my daughter gave me.
Anyway, I've gone off on a tangent. I just wanted to say how remarkable Min-ah was.
Min-ah got along well with her friends, too. She didn't seem to use people. The queen bee game — the thing I hated most. Fortunately, Min-ah could have played it, and chose not to.
There was a time, when Min-ah was in fifth grade, that I went to her elementary school. The cafeteria was under construction, so the kids were supposed to bring lunchboxes, and I hadn't managed to send one. I threw a lunchbox together at the last minute and rushed it over to the teachers' office.
Her homeroom teacher's assessment of her was extraordinarily good.
"I might sound like I'm playing favorites saying this, but... kids who look like that usually know they're pretty, and they try to put themselves above the others."
"But Min-ah doesn't. She's just so kind."
Of all the things I had ever wanted to hear about my child, that was the highest evaluation. The highest praise. I was so relieved.
"Oh, it's Dad!"
She came bouncing toward me like a little puppy, her footsteps a rapid patter against the floor — and then she threw herself into my arms. The teachers around us looked at the two of us with something like envy.
"Dad! Why are you here?!"
"Why do you think... I came to bring you lunch."
"I don't even need a lunchbox, heehee! Thank you, Dad!!"
Min-ah grinning with her teeth showing was an angel.
"Would it be all right if I walked her to her classroom myself?"
"Yes, of course. Please do."
Min-ah grabbed my hand and swung my arm wildly. She was excited.
"Min-ah, why are you so excited?"
"I was missing Dad, and then Dad just appeared! You gave me a present, just like Santa!"
"Aigoo, you little rascal, we see each other every day. You miss me that much already?"
"I always want to see Dad!"
Min-ah's innocent smile was so lovely I could hardly stand it.
"Huh? Is that Min-ah's dad?"
"Yeah, say hello! This is my dad! Isn't he cool?"
"Hello!"
"Hello!!"
Greetings rang out from all around. Boys and girls alike — all of them Min-ah's friends. I could tell in an instant what kind of image Min-ah had among her classmates.
"Heehee, those are my friends!"
Why was it? I felt like I was going to cry.
Raising Min-ah alone had been hard. The thought that she wasn't my own blood. The thought that maybe I should send her back to my ex-wife even now. Those wretched thoughts had driven me half-mad.
But seeing her like this, every one of those thoughts vanished. She was growing up so kind, and so right.
My daughter. My proud daughter.
"So these are Min-ah's friends. Want to come over? I'll cook you something delicious."
And so I started inviting Min-ah's friends over to the house on a regular basis. Min-ah was over the moon.
"See? This is my dad's cooking!"
"Whoa... my mom's food is actually terrible."
"I'm so jealous."
"So go on, say thank you to my dad!"
"Thank you!"
"We'll eat well!"
Being thanked by Min-ah's friends was one of my small joys. Min-ah enjoyed it too. She was busy showing her dad off to her friends.
I believe in physiognomy. A person's true nature shows in their face. Even in children, the ones with a mean streak have that mean look about them. Kind children have an expression all their own. Every child Min-ah brought home had a kind face. I was grateful.
And so, all the way through Min-ah's second year of middle school, I often threw home parties for her friends. I was glad. All those hours I'd spent after the divorce, studying cookbooks in the scraps of my free time, had been worth it. Watching Min-ah and her friends so happy, I was happy too.
The problem arose on her birthday, right after she graduated middle school, just before she started high school.
Among the kids who had been invited, there was a rather pretty girl.
"So you're Min-ah's father. Hello."
The way she looked at me was a little strange. A slightly appraising look, like she was giving me a once-over.
"Your dad's younger than I expected. And his arms are thick, too. Hehe."
"Ah... yeah."
She was a friend whose eyes turned into little crescents when she smiled — that was the striking thing about her. She gave my daughter a little poke and laughed. Min-ah seemed displeased by the way her friend was acting, but with me there, there was something she couldn't quite say.
They were still kids. I figured it was nothing.
"Ah—!"
A sudden grip. The girl who had come to help carry food out to the kids from the kitchen lost her footing and pitched toward me. What she grabbed was my arm.
"I... I'm sorry. I made a mistake......"
The japchae she'd been carrying had spilled all over my clothes, and she hurriedly scooped it off with her hands.
"...I'll clean it up."
There was something oddly practiced about the way she did it.
"Ah... Dad!! Are you okay?!"
The moment Min-ah saw it, she shot over, shoved her friend aside, and started cleaning up the food. The kitchen was my space, but it was Min-ah's space too. She found a dishcloth in an instant and started wiping down my clothes.
"Hey! You need to be careful!"
"I... I'm sorry......"
Min-ah's sharp glare started carving her friend to pieces. It was the first time the girl had ever seen Min-ah like that; she was thoroughly flustered, offered me an awkward greeting, and fled the scene in a hurry.
"Dad, you're really okay, right?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. Weren't you being a little too hard on your friend?"
"Ah... yeah. I'll apologize to her."
"Good. Go apologize and have fun. I'll go change."
"I'm just glad Dad didn't get hurt."
"Dad's an adult. Something like that isn't going to hurt me."
"Heehee. Okay."
Was it just my imagination?
After that, Min-ah never brought that friend over again.
No. After that, no friends ever came to our house again.
The wall behind the school backed onto an abandoned building, a place almost no one ever went.
A handful of friends caught sight of Min-ah and the girl who had spilled japchae on Min-ah's father heading in there, glaring at each other the whole way.
And not long after, that girl transferred schools.
A rumor flickered through the halls that her transfer had been Min-ah's doing — then vanished as quickly as it had appeared.